A new tool, the Risk Calculator, assesses your risk of heart attack, stroke, and – the first of its kind – heart failure. It also takes into account new indicators of cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, and metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes and obesity.
Compared to existing calculation tools, the new version allows medical professionals to assess young people and look further into the future.
Details of the calculator were published Friday in the journal Circulation in a scientific statement from the American Heart Association, along with a paper detailing the development, testing and formula for the new tool. Sadiya, chair of the committee who wrote the statement, said the new AHA risk calculator could help doctors assess health risks and help people seek treatment earlier to reduce risk.・Dr. S. Khan said in a news release.
Risk calculators allow health professionals to use health data such as blood pressure and cholesterol levels, as well as demographic and socio-economic information, to create a risk estimate or score. The new equation was developed using data from her more than 6 million U.S. adults from a variety of racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and geographic backgrounds.
The new calculator incorporates cardiovascular, renal, and metabolic syndromes, which were first defined by the AHA in October. There are five stages of CKM syndrome. People with this disease are at increased risk of heart attack, stroke, or heart failure at each stage. The risk increases as the underlying disease of CKM syndrome worsens. According to AHA statistics, one in three American adults have three or more risk factors that contribute to this syndrome.
The new calculation tool is called PREVENT. This means predicting the risk of cardiovascular disease events. We are developing an online tool.
A previous cardiovascular disease risk calculator, the Pooled Cohort Equation, was published in 2013. But since then, new treatments have become available for diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes and kidney disease, Khan says.
“We needed a new cardiovascular disease risk calculator, especially one that included a measure of CKM syndrome,” Kahn said. She is a preventive cardiologist at Northwestern Medical School and an associate professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.
The new calculator can assess people between the ages of 30 and 79 and predict their risk of heart attack, stroke and heart failure over the next 10 and 30 years. Previous calculators were designed for people starting in their 40s and looked only 10 years into the future.
“Long-term estimates are important because short-term or 10-year risks for most young people remain low. We wanted to think more broadly and apply a life course perspective.” Mr Khan said. “By providing information about risks 30 years from now, opportunities for intervention and prevention efforts in young people may be identified earlier.”
However, PREVENT has the option to include indices that incorporate indicators such as education, poverty, unemployment, and factors based on a person’s circumstances, and the new calculator has similar accuracy across races and ethnicities.
Khan said the new equation is “an important first step toward incorporating CKM health and social factors into risk prediction” for cardiovascular disease.
“The pooled cohort equation was developed using data from only white and black adults, with separate equations for people of each race,” Khan said. “We may not have accurately estimated risk for many people because we did not have risk models for individuals from other racial and ethnic groups.”
“We also acknowledge that racism, not race, operates at multiple levels to increase risk” of cardiovascular disease, and that the factors underlying racial disparities in risk and outcomes are important to consider. He said further research was needed to determine.
The new calculator also includes a scale to predict heart failure, a condition in which the heart is unable to pump properly. For people with obesity, type 2 diabetes, or kidney disease, the risk of heart failure may be higher than the risk of heart attack or stroke.
Khan said PREVENT’s estimates “should prompt conversations between health care professionals and patients to increase awareness of CKM health status and CVD risk, and translate that awareness into actions that improve health and reduce risk.” said. Such actions can include lifestyle changes such as being more physically active and eating healthier foods. Medications may also be included if needed.
